Treating cancer pain

To the Editor: The truth often hurts. Being a medical oncologist, I had pain that reached a score of 10 on reading the article by Cleeland and colleagues (March 3 issue)¹ on the inadequate management of pain in outpatients with cancer. Like many medical oncologists, I find myself staying busy just fighting pain, and I take pride in the superb level of pain control achieved in most of my inpatients and hospice patients. However, the management of pain in outpatients with cancer remains challenging for several reasons. First, inadequate tools alone cannot be blamed for poor assessment of pain as.